WASHINGTON (AP) — Billionaire investor Leon Black is appearing before the House Oversight Committee on Friday as lawmakers seek to untangle the web of wealth and influence around Jeffrey Epstein that they say enabled decades of sexual abuse.
Black is the latest powerful figure to sit for a closed-door deposition before the committee. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates testified earlier this month and said he had made a “grave error in judgment” by meeting with Epstein.
Black is the co-founder and former chief executive of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management. He stepped down in 2021 amid fallout over his ties to Epstein.
A 2021 review commissioned by Apollo found that Black paid Epstein $158 million from 2012 to 2017, after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor. The review said the payments were for “bona fide tax, estate planning and other related services.”
Black was featured prominently in the Epstein files
Black is mentioned repeatedly in files that the Department of Justice has released related to the Epstein investigation. He also appears in a collection of birthday messages sent to Epstein that were released by the House committee last year, including a poem attributed to him that refers to “Blond, Red or Brunette, spread out geographically.”
Epstein was indicted in July 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. The Justice Department alleged that Epstein created a vast network of girls, some as young as 14, for him to sexually abuse between 2002 and 2005. He died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial.
The House committee chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said earlier this year that Epstein’s former accountant, Richard Kahn, told lawmakers in his testimony that Epstein received significant sums of money from a number of high-profile individuals, including Black.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., this month referred findings from a nearly four-year investigation into Black to the House committee. In a statement, Wyden said, “Epstein even appears to have acted as a middleman for Black to pay women on Black’s behalf.”
“While I have offered Black ample opportunities to address outstanding irregularities regarding his arrangement with Epstein, he has refused,” Wyden said.
Many high-profile figures have been summoned to testify about Epstein
Other figures to have appeared for the investigation include former Democratic President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, former Attorney General Pam Bondi and Gates.
Democrats on the House committee have pushed Republicans to seek testimony from President Donald Trump, a Republican who had his own relationship with Epstein. Republicans have refused, saying they have not come across any evidence that Trump did anything wrong during his well-documented friendship with Epstein.
Comer has said he has been in touch with the Justice Department about acting Attorney General Todd Blanche coming in for questioning soon.
Bondi, in her testimony, stressed that Blanche had overseen the chaotic release of the federal Epstein files, which included the unintentional release of victim information.
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